Mysterious tribal drawings, gloriously enigmatic teaser trailers and even a brand new band name – the trickery behind Arcade Fire’s highly anticipated album, “Reflektor,” doesn’t stop at its self-fulfilling hype. The album itself is adventurous, progressive and spectacularly “now,” capturing trends and sounds that have come to define this generation of indie rock that the band arguably helped to create. What has gone overlooked, though, is the density of cultural appropriation that steeps “Reflektor.” Borrowing heavily from Haitian cultural traditions, “Reflektor” is not only a statement on the music of today, but also the intermingling of the arts and exoticism.

THE ORIGIN

R’ÛΩgine Chassagne, the woman behind the hurdy gurdy in Arcade Fire as well as lead singer Win Butler’s wife, is the only member of the band with ancestral connection to Haiti. Her parents fled their homeland during the tyrannical, horrific rule of Francois Duvalier. The 2010 Haiti Earthquake spurred Chassagne and her band mates to commence their persistent humanitarian efforts for the country.

While this strong sense of philanthropic connection to the country has been longstanding, Haiti’s artistic presence in Arcade Fire’s music and image is a new development. Butler’s travels to Haiti alongside Chassagne were undoubtedly a source of inspiration for the band’s highly anticipated follow-up to their Grammywinning concept album “The Suburbs.”

“We allowed ourselves to be transformed by our experiences in Haiti,” Butler told Canadian news outlet Maclean’s. “We changed as people in terms of what we wanted to express.” It was decided: “Reflektor” would serve as the vehicle to convey the impact that those travels made on the band, and the world was going to know.

THE MARKETING

Thanks to the relentless – and often cryptic – promotional stunts surrounding the album’s release, “Reflektor” was arguably one of the most wildly anticipated albums of the year. In a preliminary publicity campaign, cities across the world were etched with chalk drawings housing the word, “REFLEKTOR.” Part of a guerilla marketing campaign that later served as the centerpiece of “Reflektor’s” first teaser trailer, the chalk drawings were inspired by Veve. The Veve is a symbol closely associated with Haitian Vodoun practices and is employed to summon spirits into human bodies as a means of communication with the spiritual world.

Some fans commended Arcade Fire’s efforts in combining one of the band member’s strong cultural roots with its musical influences and all-around image. Ian Dille of Austin, Texas, was one welldocumented voice of dissent, though. Dille aired his own grievances to Slate after the exterior of his wife’s workplace was tagged with the “Reflektor” symbol and later covered with promotional posters. “Unlike a lot of people, who thought the graffiti campaign was ingenious, when I found out the logo was nothing but a commercial promotion I felt … used,” he wrote. Butler voiced that his intention was not to antagonize; he labeled the promotional stunt a “weird art project” and later sent Slate a handwritten apology letter personally addressed to Dille.

The mass “cultural defacement” campaign was not the only source of grief from skeptics and fans. The interactive music video for “Reflektor,” which allows the viewer to wield a specialty lens across a slew of locales within Haiti, groomed the connection between “Reflektor’s” musical direction and its country of inspiration. The video, though, is only available for viewing via smart phone or laptop, preventing many of the video’s most likely impoverished stars from viewing it. The next video on Arcade Fire’s queue was a teaser trailer for “Afterlife,” which follows a developing maelstrom of people in the streets of Haiti illuminated by phantom police lights. This troubling sense of irony pervades throughout “Reflektor” and its public image.

THE COSTUMES

For their latest string of performances, Arcade Fire has assumed the disguise of The Reflektors, and their costuming has mirrored this adopted identity. Formerly favoring a hodgepodge of military-inspired garb and casual dress, the band is now donning traditional Kanaval masks, which are worn during Mardi Gras celebrations in Haiti. Originally distinctive and committed nod to their musical inspirations, these masks have been reduced to the brunt of tactless jokes. During their performance of “Normal Person” on “The Colbert Report,” the band parodied their papier-m’Û΢ch’ÛΩ masks by performing around a giant bobbing Stephen Colbert Kanaval head.

While the Kanaval masks are the most recent of Arcade Fire’s aesthetic gaffs, it is not the first offense. Butler’s most notable cultural misstep was his donning of a cravat in a promotional image for “Reflektor.” Part of the uniforms of the French plantation owners that inflicted Haitian genocide years ago, the image of a white man donning a cravat has become painful and emotionally charged for many.

THE MUSIC

After meeting the Haitian band Ram during a performance in Cange, Haiti, Arcade Fire hit the studio in New Orleans and enlisted the band’s percussionists to head a workshop on their rhythmic allure. This session led to a stockpile of off-kilter, syncopated drum fills that served as inspiration for “Reflektor,” from the rumbling strut pervading “Flashbulb Eyes” to the haunting call-and-response in “Porno.” That’s not to say that their new geographical muse dominates the album’s musical direction. LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy polished the album with euphoric sheen, which is most evident on Side Two of “Reflektor.”

When describing their revitalized sound to BBC’s Zane Lowe, Win Butler described the band’s new sound as “a mashup of Studio 54 and Haitian voodoo music.” While the description certainly seems applicable to the tribally rooted, synth-glittered album, the sensitivity of the statement remains questionable. The purpose of Arcade Fire’s militant insistence to forge such a strong connection with Haiti persists as a befuddling crisis of identity for a band that once served as indie rock’s poster child.

Madonna’s famous “Vogue” was borrowed from New York City’s gay ballroom scene; Miley Cyrus unleashed her racy new image at the now-infamous VMAs “Twerk-gate”; Keith Richards formed his own reggae-rock band during his residence in Jamaica. Cultural borrowing is not a new practice in music, yet “Reflektor” seems to have surpassed a threshold. Reaping passionate response from a media edifice that is more culturally engaged than ever, “Reflektor” will certainly be remembered as one of the most polarizing albums of modern music. Whether it’s for its triumphs or its offenses, only time will tell.